[There's a reason that Yoda is the unofficial mascot of SBS. Size indeed matters not.] Do your homework - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"
Sun, Mar 8 2009 12:51 bradley

Do your homework

Evaluating Zimbra: Are these features available, coming soon, or coming never? - Zimbra - Forums:
http://www.zimbra.com/forums/migration/27135-evaluating-zimbra-these-features-available-coming-soon-coming-never.html

The talk on the smallbizit channel lately has been to investigate options for the smaller client base due to the economy, price tag of SBS 2008 and just the fact of life that there are way more options now for technology than there ever were before.  Google.  Hosted Exchange.  Zimbra.  Open office have all been bantered about as alternatives lately to Microsoft.

But sometimes it's the little things that one takes for granted that you need to watch out for.  Like the Send to feature in Outlook.  Assuming of course the firm has the "sticky" Outlook to Exchange stack the little "send to, mail recipient as attachment" is a little take for granted feature that once it's gone impacts the work flow.  When looking at alternatives such as Google, or Zimbra or alternative platforms, this is where your business process flow brain needs to kick in.  Review how the firm works.  How truly 'sticky' are they in the Microsoft stack.  People many times say they aren't tied to Microsoft when in reality they truly are.  It's like Quickbooks.  It's the sticky thing that no matter how much at the end of the day it may annoy us, the reality is that it's hard to rip out.  Show me a Mac user in business and I'll show you someone who still has his toes in the Microsoft stack and has to still use Microsoft somewhere.

Set up a pilot project if need be.  If folks don't like the change between XP and Vista, moving someone from the Microsoft stack to Mac or Ubuntu is no walk in the park either, not to mention you now need to find a new support community if you are just as a newb as your client base is.

Bottom line, do your homework on alternatives.

Filed under:

# re: Do your homework

Monday, March 09, 2009 7:47 AM by Mike

I think the better idea is first do your homework on your clients. Alternatives work out fantastic depending on the client.

Yeah, sometimes you don't get the super shineys with some of them, but honestly, the amount of retraining needed from Word 2003 to Word 2007 would be just as much as if you moved them to Open Office, and Open Office still has a look with the menu system that Office 2003 has.

Microsoft makes a decent product, and yes some of the Microsoft stack is always going to be there, but realize that the learning curve between Microsoft and Non-Microsoft is getting smaller.